After the talks with the officials ebbed like a tide at dusk, Ouyang didn’t leave; he let the shade-draped avenues of Canopy City keep him for a few days.

In those few days, Augustine finally learned from Ouyang how to draw on the White Elf slumbering in his veins; even if it was only to freeze time for a heartbeat within a small space, his joy burst like fireworks under a midnight sky. The kid was so wired he lay awake all night, like a drumline that wouldn’t quiet.

“Cat, I can’t sleep—what do I do?” Augustine sprawled on the broad bed like a stranded boat. He stared at the ceiling’s pale expanse, his thoughts a flock of startled birds. Excited first, action second—just one second of stilled time, yet this kind of power touches the river of time itself, a river no archmage dares to dam.

White Cat met Augustine’s fevered grin with cool rain. He lay by the pillow, tail swishing in the air like a metronome. “You really think meat pies fall from the sky? That Ouyang guy woke your power like a bell at dawn; you can bet he’s got a purpose tucked under his cloak.”

“A purpose? Cat, come on. Teacher helped me wake it so I can defeat the Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts—wasn’t that obvious as sunlight from the start? Besides, that’s what I wanted anyway; I just didn’t have the thunder for it.”

White Cat had no words for a beat, like wind hitting an empty flag.

“Cat, how about we go check the royal city’s night view? You don’t sleep anyway.” Before White Cat could hiss a no, Augustine scooped him up like a bundle of snow and slipped out the door like a shadow.

The corridor was quiet as a pond. Halfway down, Augustine froze; near a window ahead, a pitch-black silhouette flickered in and out beneath moonlight, like ink breathing on paper.

What was that? A ghost?

He’d seen more than enough dead in the City of the Dead, yet facing a different kind of life made his spine prickle like frost on grass.

“Yo, little Ao, where you headed at this hour?” A familiar voice rolled over like warm wind, and Augustine let out a breath he’d been holding like a lungful of smoke. Ouyang stood by the window, and beside him perched a rabbit that talked like people, just like White Cat did.

Leaning on the sill, Ouyang wore that moonlit smile that always looked carved by silver. Every time Augustine saw it, a quiet harbor of safety formed in his chest like lantern-light on water.

“Human kid, out this late… heh, your motives aren’t pure. Planning a midnight sneak into Widow Alley?” Jade Rabbit’s tease hit like a tomato to the face, and Augustine flushed red as a lantern. Widow Alley? Come on—he was a pure-hearted boy.

“I’m not! I just couldn’t sleep and wanted to see the city lights, that’s all.” His words tumbled out like pebbles down a slope.

Against that rabbit’s relentless needling, Augustine was as helpless as a leaf in wind.

“Night view, huh? From this tiny window it’s meh. Let’s go see the real thing under open sky.” Ouyang’s mind clicked into place like a lock.

As he decided, a white shape drifted closer from the hall’s far end, soft as mist on a lake.

What now? Augustine stepped back, heart thudding like a scared hare. Then the figure came near and he deflated with a sheepish chuckle. “Oh—it’s you, Bai…” He rubbed the back of his head like a boy caught in rain; tonight his nerves were strung like tight strings.

Bai wore a thin camisole dress like moonlight over snow. She rubbed her eyes, not quite awake, and tugged at Ouyang’s sleeve like a kitten on a curtain. “See… the lights…” Her emerald eyes met Ouyang’s like forest reflecting stars. She didn’t need more words; she wanted in.

“In that case, we all go. Vice-Captain, stop hiding in the trees; think I didn’t notice the rustle? Ageless girl, if you want to come, quit lurking behind that bat and step out where the moon can see you.”

Ouyang gently combed Bai’s silver hair, smooth as water, and tied it with a white ribbon like a strip of cloud. Meanwhile, Augustine rapped on doors like a night breeze, dragging Caro and Collin from sleep—if they were going, they’d go like a festival, all together.

So, inside the Void Church, a pack of insomniacs slipped into the night like a school of fish into dark water.

“Collin, where in Canopy City has the best night view? You lead.” Ouyang tossed the job over like a ball. Collin was still half-asleep, but after twenty-odd years in this city, he could walk these streets in dreams like rivers in his palm.

“Sure is lively…” Ouyang watched the streets flow by, a river of people under a canopy of lamps. It was deep night, but the lights burned like stars that refused to set.

“This is humanity… a race that forges miracles like sparks off steel.” White Cat crouched on Augustine’s head like a crown of snow. He spoke for once, then lazed again, a cool lord atop a warm head.

Streetlamps kept peeling back the dark like hands parting curtains, and their gentle glow pulled Ouyang’s thoughts a year backward like a tide. The Other Shore had been that vibrant too: angels wheeling like gulls, elves scattering rainbow light like summer rain. He’d stepped into that empty shore for a falling star, and learned that once life leaves, even palaces fall silent like windless chimes.

Life’s presence stitches color into the night sky; because of life, this firmament blazes like a quilt of fireflies.

One day, if no people walked these stones, if no dog barked or cat purred—would this night view still be beautiful, or collapse like a lantern with no flame?

“Turns out… without noticing, I have things I want to guard.” By the low hill near the church, Ouyang lay flat on the grass like a man folding into the earth, eyes on the glittering heavens. The view here was a mosaic: the high ground showed city neon like a second constellation, and the slope dropped to a small lake, a dark coin in a bowl of green—perfect for rolling like a child down a soft hill.

Moonlight laid a veil of silver on the grass, and everything blurred like a painting washed with mist.

“Not bad, human kid. You picked a spot like a pearl in a shell.” Jade Rabbit, for once, offered praise. Collin sniffed night air and woke up fully, eyes clear as springs. “Heh, when I felt low as a storm cloud as a kid, I wandered and found this place. I’d sit here all night, quiet as a stone, and by dawn my worries would melt like frost.”

Bad moods—yeah.

Ouyang remembered. Back in the Starry Citadel, whenever a black mood like rain pressed on him, he’d sit alone on the back mountain and watch the meteor showers fall like endless rivers of fire. In the Starry Citadel, meteors never stopped.

Memories returned like migrating birds, and the little things of the Starry Citadel lit up one by one like lanterns along a path.

“Hah… I think I finally get why you chose to stay.” His voice fell soft as dew; no one knew who the words were for. “Everyone guards something—so for this world you created, you chose to remain, firm as a rooted tree. That says you love this world to the bone.”

“For her, and for this world heavy with our footprints—Yujin, Luo, Axuan… I’ll take responsibility for everything here.” He smiled, a man slipping off a chain. The hesitation in him cracked like thin ice; he had decided. “You think so too, right, Aurora?”

Under the same quilt of stars, in Ancient Memory Town, Xi leaned on her balcony rail and drank the sky like cool water.

Xian padded over in pajamas, hugging a teddy bear like a moon clutched to her chest. “Sis, aren’t you sleeping?”

“In a bit.” Xi smoothed Xian’s messy hair like combing a lake, then kissed her cheek like a petal landing. “Be good. Sleep first. I’m going to chat with Big Brother.”

“Big Brother… Brother Ouyang?”

“Mm.”

“Then tell him to hurry back. Tell him I miss him.” Xian ran back, skipping like a sparrow, bear bouncing in her arms.

Xi leaned into the railing, and the night breeze combed her sunset-orange hair like fingers through flame. Her slender waist pressed the wood, and her jade-pale hand closed on empty air, as if trying to hold the wind.

“Dummy. Since you remember now, come back fast.” Her murmur drifted upward like smoke.

A five-colored glow unfurled behind her like a peacock’s tail, and an angel stepped out barefoot, dew on skin. If Ouyang had been there, he’d have known that face—the long-missing Ruola.

“Master…” the angel said behind her, a bell struck once. Xi didn’t turn. “I already know. That matter’s yours to handle.” The angel answered “As you command,” then dissolved into seven-colored rain, scattering like confetti into the night.

“Ayang, this was supposed to be our story, and those idiots keep jamming their chopsticks in the pot. I’m actually mad.” Her voice carried a spark like flint.

Back in Canopy City, Ouyang lay on the grass and let out a helpless laugh, a river running over stones. Yeah—this was Ouyang and Aurora’s story. Even if Axuan threw a projection across the sky like a kite, their part wouldn’t come for a long, long time.

“So you, eternal bachelor, planning to take it out on society?” Ouyang dropped the line into the quiet like a pebble into a pond, and everyone blinked. Then they saw why.

On the treetop opposite, in silvered branches, a crow launched toward them. Its eyes glowed dark red like coals in ash—a bad omen fluttering against the moon. The moment they saw it, everyone but Ouyang felt a chill climb the spine like cold water.

“You keep borrowing a pet’s body to stroll the night—seriously…” Ouyang hadn’t finished before the crow thumped onto his head and beat him with its wings, thwack-thwack, like a maid scolding dust from a rug.

“Tch. If I hadn’t helped, would you and Aurora be this close? Look at you, burning bridges like dry straw. Honestly, kid, you disappoint me.” The crow shook its head in midair, a black pendulum of judgment.

Ouyang wasn’t about to take that on the chin. He caught the bird mid-flap like snagging a scarf, and heaved it toward the lake in an arc. Splash.

A soggy crow staggered back up, feathers plastered like a drowned cat.

“Help me? You never had clean hands. You failed to court Aurora, then egged me on to pester her—start to finish, you were the villain of the piece. And you dare say that with a straight beak?”

Ouyang’s temper flared like sparks. Back in the Starry Citadel, he had two neighbors—Aurora on one side, that guy on the other. He suspected Aurora’s first look of pity might’ve been because she watched him get tormented by that neighbor like a leaf in a storm. Maybe because of that pity, they got to where they did…

Later, for reasons like fog, he lost his memories of both Aurora and that guy. Even so, in a twisted way, that guy pushed him and Aurora together. But Ouyang couldn’t force out a “thanks,” not with his tongue a stone.

“Forget it. I never expected thanks.” The crow looped the air like a thrown ring. “I’ve had my stroll. Time to head back.” It came out of nowhere like a gust and left the same way, a black scrap vanishing into the night.

Ouyang kept looking after it for a long while, eyes on the empty sky like a man watching smoke fade. He laughed once, rough, and his eyes went damp as dew. “Captain… you’ll never find a girl like that. You do everything alone, lantern in hand, never asking for thanks, walking to the end of that dark road even if everyone misunderstands.”

He knew plenty. Behind Dream Chaser’s grinning mask was a face as lonely as a winter field. He helped everyone, then turned away with a clown’s smile, leaving no hook for our gratitude to hang on.

He’d always been the quiet pair of hands holding up their sky. While laughter rang like wind-bells, he watched their smiles from a corner no one walked. No one knew who trudged that lonely road behind the dream-bright sky.

Back then, Ouyang had already turned to void, a candle blown to smoke. That man, risking erasure, wrested from the Supreme Law the shard of Ouyang’s undispersed soul origin. Only then could the Ouyang of today draw breath.

The stars were the same stars, the night a painted scroll unrolling. A crow skimmed the dark like ink, a sword pacing at its wing. “Is this really the way? No one will understand your intent…” A man’s voice floated from the Divine Sword, a thin thread of worry.

“It doesn’t matter… Maybe I’ve long since learned to live with it. Truth is, Ouyang knows; he knows better than anyone. I set him and Aurora on their path, and I brought back his soul origin… He knows all that. If you understand me, that’s enough.”

“Luo, do you remember? We used to keep watch under this same sky… It’s beautiful—because you were there, it became this beautiful.”

They pierced layer after layer of cloud. The Divine Sword answered, “I remember. We’re watchers, all of us. But it’s time you rested. You’ve carried too much alone, a mountain on one back. All these years, she’s still waiting. Won’t you turn back?”

The crow fell silent for a long while, a dark leaf on the wind. “Maybe. Looks like it’s time to rest. I’ll leave the rest to the two of them. After all, this is their story.”

To most eyes, tonight looked unchanged, the same ink-washed dark. To a few, it was so beautiful it intoxicated, a night you could drown in.